Event overview
Kristin Asdal, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
How are we to analytically grasp environmental change? Or put differently; how can we grasp the ways in which natures are being taking into account(-ing)? This lecture brings together two approaches, the social studies of science and technology (STS) and Foucauldian studies of government, to analyse a particular technology of politics: the office. It argues that we risk missing too much if we let mundane political institutions slip from our attention. If we are to grasp the ways in which nature is taken into account, maybe it´s precisely “the ordinariness” that ought to interest us? In trying this route, the slow and steady rhythm, the sometimes close to repetitiveness of the workings of ordinary political institutions, might be a fruitful place to start. Hence, in exploring environmental change, this paper attends to accounting practices, budget procedures and long term programs as they are practiced in governmental offices. Empirically the paper explores two such governmental settings or offices. Employing notions like interested objects, relational spaces and practices of timing, the paper seeks to find ways for studying devices and technologies of politics, while at the same time carefully trying to avoid taking “nature” as the relevant object for granted. What interests me is to explore which emerging objects are taken into accounting and accounted for within offices of politics and administrations.
Jennifer Gabrys (Goldsmiths) will act as respondent.
Kristin Asdal is Professor at the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture (TIK), University of Oslo. She was trained in economic history and later moved to science and technology studies. In her research Kristin explores the exchanges and confrontations between natural science and economics in politics and administration. Kristin also works on methods and the performativity of methods, both in politics and social science and history and is currently working with Noortje Marres on a project on performing environmental change. Recent publications include a special issue of Science, Technology and Human Values on "context" with Ingunn Moser and a paper on The Office in Accounting, Organizations and Society.
Jennifer Gabrys is Principal Investigator on the European Council Research project, “Citizen Sensing and Environmental Change,” and Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research investigates the intersection of environments, materialities and communication technologies through theoretical and practice-based work. Projects within this area include a recently published book, Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics (University of Michigan Press, 2011), which examines the materialities of electronic waste; and a study currently underway on citizen sensing, Program Earth: Environment as Experiment in Sensing Technology.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 7 Feb 2013 | 4:30pm - 6:00pm |
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